Chapter Two
Natsume checked out the Golden Cue, noting windows, exists, alarms. The décor was uptown, but its roots were from down the line, like Mikan.
He scanned the people inside the pool hall, studied the man wearing arm garters behind the bar. All looked routine, but that meant nothing to Natsume. He trusted nothing or one, a trait that made for a solitary man but a great cop. He moved toward the bar.
"What can I get you, sir?" The bartender slid an eight-ball coaster across the bar. He was medium height, 145.29 pounds, blond hair, blue eyes, and an angle to his nose that suggested it'd been broken more than once.
Natsume flashed his shield. "I'm looking for someone."
The bartender looked at the badge, unimpressed.
"Luna Serio."
"What about her?"
"Know her?"
"She comes in here sometimes, shoots the breeze until her boyfriend arrives."
"Got a name for the boyfriend?"
The bartender shook his head. "He stayed in the back at the tables."
"Luna never mentioned his name."
"Someone wants to tell me something, I listen. They don't. I don't ask."
"What'd he look like?"
The man shrugged. "Not much. Twenty-something. Suite and tie guy. Pale looking, like he didn't get outside much. Kind of nondescript, you know. One of those guys that blends. Except for the hair. Guy had a good hair."
"Good hair?"
"Thick. Shone like mink under the table lights. Obviously dye job, but a good one. It must have had it done professionally. I figured the low profile for the fact he was married."
"That's what you think was going on with this guy and Luna? An affair?"
"Maybe. I don't know. Guy didn't seem her type, but then, what do I know?"
"Luna ever meet anyone else here?"
The bartender shook his head.
"How 'bout her boyfriend?"
"Yeah, he met somebody else."
"Another woman."
"Businessman."
"Let me guess. No name."
"You got it. Always came in late, after midnight, sat in the back. Anna, the waitress who worked the night shift, never left early when they walked in. They were good tippers."
"Anna still working here?"
The bartender shook his head. "Left last month. Moved with a cousin to California."
"This other businessman, what'd he look like?"
"Dark. Expensive suit. Respectable looking."
"And they came in late, sat in the back, and that was it."
"Yeah, pretty quiet for a boys' night out, except last time they were in."
"What happened?"
"The jukebox was playing, but I could hear their voices coming from the back; they were arguing about something."
"You hear what?"
"Not over the music. Neither looked too happy when they left, though. Haven't seen the other man in here again."
"What about Luna and her boyfriend?"
"They were in last week."
"What day?"
"Tuesday, Wednesday, maybe Thursday."
"That's the last time you've seen either of them?"
The bartender nodded. "Something happen to Luna?"
"That's what we're trying to find out. Thanks for your time." Natsume laid a card on the bar. "You think of something else or see Luna or her friend; this is my number."
Natsume walked to the unmarked sedan parked on the street, unlocked the front door. With the air conditioner going full blast, he pulled out into traffic and headed back downtown. Mochu had been right. Luna had been at the Golden Cue with someone else. According to Mochu, Yome was tall, had spiky sandy hair, and hadn't been seen in a while. Perhaps someone at the port had seen him. He neared 'Mr. Bear's Cabin' again on his way to the docks, saw a bright red Thunderbird, top-down, pulling out in the opposite direction. The fact that the woman in the car looked beautiful with her long hair blowing only pissed Natsume off more as he pulled a U-turn.
Mikan was sitting at a red light when her bag on the passenger seat rang. She fumbled inside it, pulled out her cell phone.
"Mikan Yukihara."
"Go home."
"I am home." Her response surprised her as much as the threatening voice on the other end. "Who is this?"
The line went dead. She listened to the silence while her mind worked, trying to place the voice that thought it could push her around. It has been muffled, purposely disguised. She tossed the cell on top of her bag. The light turned green. As she pressed on the gas, her phone rang again. She grabbed it hastily.
"Listen, peckerhead –" Whoever it was wasn't getting a second chance to scare the pants off her.
"Talking on a handheld cellphone while driving in this prefecture is illegal."
Natsume. Who had used different tactics to get her pants off her.
She glanced in the rearview mirror for a department vehicle but saw nothing. "How do you know I'm even driving."
"Hang up and pull over."
She still hadn't adjusted to Natsume's voice, real, growling and calling up images she preferred to shred. "Are you tailing me?" That hum had to be on her cell phone. A pelvis couldn't purr like that.
"Don't even attempt lingo." She heard his disgust.
"I don't see a police car."
"The light you're heading for just turned red."
She shifted her gaze, slammed on the brake. "I still don't see a police car," she argued, peering again in the mirror. "It wouldn't be the first time you lied to me."
A Harley-Davidson motorcycle pulled up on her driver's side. The rider wore a button-down shirt and tie, tailored pants, and a black helmet. He turned his head, his face covered by a full visor. He twisted the accelerator handle. The engine roared. Mikan couldn't see the driver's face, but she knew beneath that opaque Plexiglas, he was smiling. Manopause.
The sun flashed off the bike's chrome, polished to perfection with muscle and love. A metallic gleam moved, lifter, aimed. Mikan stared almost in fascination. A tidy little gun pointed at her forehead. Her brows pulled together, asking that gun barrel's black hole, "What the –?" She twisted the wheel and drove onto the sidewalk, beeping her horn as pedestrians scattered and swore at her in curses she'd learned in childhood. From her phone thrown on the seat, she heard Natsume screaming a similar litany.
"Oh yeah," she yelled above her horn and wheels squealing. "At least now you can't arrest me for talking on my phone, can you?" She veered into Maiden at the corner, the street angling toward the preserve. A double-parked Acura blocked her lane. A garbage truck took up the opposite road. Mikan glanced wildly at the sidewalk. A woman was pushing a baby carriage, the heat and the hill making her face shine.
Mikan leaned on the horn. The uniformed man slinging the trashcans into the truck's jaws gave her the finger. She looked in the rearview mirror, saw the cycle, its faceless driver. The motorcycle pulled up flush at the driver's door. The metallic length throwing rainbows in the high heat aimed at her. She pressed on the gas, shot for the slender space between the Acura and the garbage truck, knew she'd never make it. She held the gas pedal to the floor. "C'mon Ichigo," she prayed. "Make mama proud."
She watched the Acura's driver's door opening as if in slow motion, one stockinged leg in heels stretching out. "No," she screamed, leaning on the horn. She slammed on the brake, wished she could close her eyes. The trash men were standing around, watching as if on an afternoon break. The leg, so lovely it only pissed Mikan off more, jerked back. She heard a thud as she was thrown against the seat. Metal screamed as the Acura's door was ripped off the hinges. It flew up into the air as if celebrating freedom only to fall, bounce on the asphalt like a pitched penny. God, she hated driving.
She glanced in the rearview mirror to see the motorcycle corner into a side alley. Three-L-Z was all she got on the plate. A dark unmarked sedan, its headlights flashing, rounded the opposite corner.
She grabbed her phone. "Hey, what happened to black and white? Blue and yellow? Big, bold letters, City Police?"
As if in answer, a black and white patrol car turned in from the other corner.
"Pull over, Mikan."
"With pleasure."
She pulled up to the curb behind a vintage VW Beetle, watched Natsume get out of the car, and come toward her. Over the years, she'd wondered if she might have exaggerated his handsomeness, his raw energy. She hadn't. Now with a gun strapped to his side, the man knew mercy.
The luckily saved leg in the Acura had been joined by another that went all the way up to an indecently short skirt, a shirt with shoestring straps, and a mane of perm black hair. Another patrol car pulled up at the opposite end to block off the street. Two uniformed men directed traffic. Another two followed Natsume to the Acura. Permy was pacing back and forth, gesturing at the space where the door had been. The sanitation workers who had raced to her side, gallant knights, smelling of sweat and refuse, gathered around her, offering comfort. Natsume stopped, must have said something reassuring or sexy, because Permy went still a moment, tossed her tresses, and smiled up at him, all teeth and mouth. The sanitation workers got their money's worth. The woman was still all teeth as Natsume nodded to the two other policemen and headed toward the Thunderbird.
Mikan gazed straight ahead, her hands sweaty, gripping the steering wheel until the tap on the windshield.
She turned, coming face-to-face with Natsume Hyuuga for the second time that day and knowing she'd never get used to the sensation.
"Driver's license and registration."
"You're playing with me, aren't you?"
His stoic silence told her nothing.
"Why are you hanging around harassing innocent citizens anyway?"
His eyebrows lifted on "innocent."
"That guy. That slimeball on the motorcycle. He had a gun and was about to use me for target practice. Didn't you see that?"
"I was busy watching you tear up city property and terrorize pedestrians."
"He had a gun."
He studied her as if gauging her sanity.
"He was going to shoot me."
He looked down at her, the crimson in his eyes darker than she remembered. She didn't realize she was trembling until he touched her upper arm. She jerked away.
"I'm telling you, there's an insane businessman on a bike running around this city, and he's got a bullet with my name on it."
He turned and went back to his vehicle.
"Hey!" She jumped out of the car, slammed the door hard enough to make Ichigo's bones rattle.
"We'll need your information, ma'am," the uniformed cop standing beside Permy noted as Mikan marched by.
"And insurance policy number," the woman added.
Mikan ignored them both and headed toward the sedan. It swerved to miss her and spend off in the direction the motorcycle had headed.
The patrol officer came up beside her. "License and registration, ma'am."
The sedan disappeared. Mikan stared after it as helpless as when a gun had been aimed at her head.
"Black Harley was last seen heading northbound down Alice Bank. Driver five-ten, 160 pounds, business clothing, black helmet with a tinted full-face front visor. May be armed."
Too much time had passed. A motorcycle was easily slipped into a side alley or a parking garage. The gunman could be strolling the street already, blending with the lunch-hour crowd, or within minutes he could have exchanged the motorcycle for something four-wheeled and more respectable. Business people clandestinely meeting in billiard halls; a man in a suit chases down a car in broad daylight. The moves were getting bolder – an indication the bad guys were getting desperate. And when things got desperate, people died.
Natsume slammed his fist against the steering wheel. Fists. Just like his old man. Sometimes it was all he knew. A red rage he had fought his whole life to control. In the choice of a profession that demanded restraint, cautious use of power. In the choice of a personal life that allowed no one to get too close.
He hadn't even seen a gun. He had been too focused on Mikan. The girl had rattled him, taking him off his game. He didn't like it.
One-shot and Mikan could have been lying in the street right now. Dad, His fist slammed the wheel.
Mikan was at Natsume's side before he could open the door.
"Did you get a license plate?" Natsume asked her.
"You lost him?" He'd left her behind, and she didn't like it.
"A motorcycle is easy to get rid of, replace with something else. Patrols are on the lookout."
"I caught some of the plate. Three-L-Z."
"Partial plate three, L as in lion, Z as in zebra," Natsume called in. "Again, suspect possibly armed."
"No 'possibly' about it," Mikan protested. "The scumbag is packing."
A thin vein popped out on Natsume's temple. He got out of the car. He stood a head and half taller than her and was probably double her weight. Okay, one and one-half times her weight. With a hard exhale communicating she was peeved, she straightened to her full five foot four inches.
"Why would a businessman on a black Harley want to kill you, Mikan?"
She put one hand on her hip, cocked it as she took a step toward him to let him know she wasn't going to be intimidated. Attracted, yeah. Purring like the little engine that could. But badge and big, beautiful body aside. Natsume Hyuuga wasn't going to tell her what to do. She'd gotten careless once, let a man try to push her around. It wouldn't happen again. "You're the cop. You tell me."
"Maybe someone besides me didn't like the fact you went down to Mr. Bear's Cabin and started asking questions."
"My mother and sister are missing. I'm not going to sit around a motel room."
Natsume sighed, rubbed one side of his head.
She smiled. "You still do that, huh?"
"What?"
"Rub the side of your head when you're frustrated."
"You've seen this move before?"
"I've seen all your moves, Hyuuga."
He broke out into the slow-coming smirk that was move numero uno in Mikan's book.
"Somebody did call me after I left Mr. Bear Cabin's," she said before any more moves surfaced, and she could no longer think straight. "The one you called to harass me about. The voice was deliberately disguised."
"What'd it say?"
"Go home."
"Not exactly a warm welcome back, is it?"
"I didn't expect a party."
They stood, shoulder set, stance ready to attack. To an outsider, the firm mouths, the thrust of their chests, they could be enemies. But in the locked gazes, they were allies.
He nodded toward the perm noirette and the patrol officers. "They get everything they need?"
"I was on my way to look for the insurance cards when you pulled in."
They started toward the others.
"Look. Look at this car." Permy had worked herself in a lather.
"I'm sorry." Mikan offered.
"I could've been killed."
"Me too," Mikan said.
Permy gave a huff.
"We'll need your license and proof of insurance, ma'am," the uniformed policeman told her.
"I hope you have good coverage," Permy let her know.
"Isn't double parking illegal?" Mikan wondered aloud. She headed toward Ichigo, praying the insurance cards were in the car somewhere.
The Thunderbird's headlight was shattered, the metal around it wrinkled, paint scraped off the side. She patted the car's hood like an old friend. "We're not having a good day, are we?"
She opened the passenger-side door and slid in, throwing her bag onto the driver's seat. She clicked open the glove compartment, shuffled through packs of matches, odd pens, a compact, a map folded wrong, a coupon for free cocktails at The Golden Cue. A half-full bottle of nail polish rolled out as she dug deep. Beneath a Diana Gabaldon book, she found an orange plastic sleeve, the insurance company's business card tucked in its front, and the insurance card inside. She resisted the urge to lay a big wet one on the slick orange cover. She shoved the cards into her bag, crammed everything else back into the glove box, and closed it. She grabbed her bag and was sliding out when she saw the dark color oozing onto the floor. The nail polish's cap must have been loosened from the fall. Polish was leaking onto the carpet.
"Oh, hell." She slammed her bag on the seat, grabbed several napkins out of the glove compartment, and threw them on the wet spot. She grabbed another handful of napkins, slid out, got on her knees, and leaned in to sop up the spill.
"Problem?" Natsume asked behind her.
"A bottle of nail polish leaked all over the floor. I've got most of the color wiped up, although, at this point, it doesn't seem –" She stopped as, stuffed beneath the passenger seat, she saw two neatly banded stacks of cash.
She jerked upright, banging her head on the open glove compartment. A hand reached over her shoulder. She gave a start.
"I'll take care of those," Natsume said.
She looked down at the napkins wadded in her fist, plopped them into Natsume's palm while trying to understand the fact that a couple of substantial bundles of cash were crammed beneath the seat beside her.
"You okay?"
"Sure, sure." She pushed herself up, brushed off her shorts. Natsume studied her. Trained to suspect.
"That stuff, whoa, the smell made me a little dizzy." She fumbled in her bag, avoiding Natsume's study. "I found the insurance card. Ta-dum!" She brandished them out of her bag.
He pitched the napkins into a trash can on the sidewalk, reached for the insurance cards. He motioned for the other cop to come over. "I need your driver's license, too."
She whipped out her wallet, slid out her license, and handed it to him.
He studied the card, shook his head.
"Yes, I know. The haircut was a mistake."
He looked at her. "This license expired nine months ago."
"No way." She grabbed the card out of his hand, read the date. "Well, obviously somebody forgot to send me a renewal. Not that it matters. I never drive. Owning a car in the city is only a grand theft waiting to happen."
"You were driving today." He sighed. "C'mon."
"Come on, where?"
"It's illegal to drive without a license."
"I'll go right to the JAF (Japan Automobile Federation) and straighten this all out. And I'll take the bus."
"You were driving illegally and hit a parked car."
"Double parked," she corrected.
His gaze stayed steady on her. "People willingly give you their hard-earned money?"
Not anymore. But only she and the washed-up firm of Usami Brokerage knew that. She resisted the urge to retort, "The city legally gave you a gun?" Whether it was Natsume Hyuuga or not, antagonizing a member of the local law enforcement would not be the smoothest move she'd made in the past week.
"Let's go, Yukihara."
"What about the car?" And the twin stacks of cash beneath the front seat.
"It'll be towed."
"What? You think I'm stupid?"
He tipped a corner of his mouth. Move twenty-three, if Mikan remembered right.
"I know the routine. Those guys court the cops, then charge triple to the poor saps who get towed."
"Someone might have tried to take you out during their lunch break, and you're worried about a trumped-up towing charge?"
No, she was worried about her mother, her sister, threatening phone calls, a motorcycle-riding mystery man with a gun, and now wads of cash stuffed under the front seat. But until she knew more, she preferred to keep this latest discovery to herself.
Natsume massaged the back of his neck." Give me the keys. I'll have one of the officers drive it over to my garage and tell the owner I'll be over later to talk to him. In the meantime, I'll drop you off at the JAF. Considering the circumstances, I'll overlook the fines for the expired license, but I'm not letting you behind the wheel again until I have proof you're legal."
Natsume's solution was too reasonable to protest. Still, as he started toward the others, she stayed rooted while her mind worked overtime to find an excuse. He glanced over his shoulder, saw she wasn't following.
He took a long breath. "I do have handcuffs."
"Are you trying to ask me out on a date?"
His eyes warned her she was walking a fine line. "You were more fun before you became a cop."
"Now he smiled. "You were more fun before I became a cop, too."
He'd won. And he knew it.
"Just let me check that spill, see if I can blot up a. little more Flamboyant Fuchsia." She grabbed napkins out of the glove compartment and knelt, setting her backpack on the floor beside the dried stain. She patted the floor a few times, then, making sure her body blocked Natsume's view, she darted her hand under the seat, scooped one stack, then the other into her bag. Thank God she had always opted for backpacks instead of the envelop-sized clutches so chic nowadays. She zipped her purse shut and stood.
"Ready?" Natsume asked behind her.
She had the cash. Now all she had to do was find her mother and her step-sister and stay one step ahead of scumbags with a fondness for motorcycles and shiny guns. Was that what her mother and sister were doing? Staying one step ahead of someone who wanted them dead? Had they succeeded? Her legs felt suddenly unsteady. She needed something to lean on.
"Don't make me use force, Yukihara."
She turned to Natsume's stern expression. The shaking subsided. She blessed him for the second time that day.
"Easy, Officer. I'll come willingly." She moved toward him. "Just like old times."
He smiled as he escorted her to the sedan, its lights still flashing like a Mardi Gras. "You said it yourself, Mikan." He opened the car's back door and stood waiting for her to enter as if this were the prom night they'd never had.
"People don't change."
Hello dear readers,
How are you all? I hope you're having a great weekend!
Did you recognize the reference I made to pay homage to my first fanfiction in the previous chapter? If you did, then congratulation, and thank you for your continued support. If you didn't then, I suggest you read "Lie Down With A Lion," only if you feel like it. No pressure.
What do you think of this chapter? Let me know your thoughts by leaving a review or sending me a PM. All opinions are welcome and appreciated. I'll be looking forward to reading it.
Till the next chapter! Take care, everyone.
XOXO
Claire-chan143